A Lazy Ocean Hugs the Shore
by Kassi
Summary: Rude takes Tifa to an elaborate gay nightclub in Edge. Post-ACC. Slash. Written for Soak.
1. Simple Joys of Maidenhood

**Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its characters, places, and situations are (C) copyright Square Enix. They are reproduced here for non-commercial entertainment. All other material is mine.**

**Content warning: eventual explicit M/M sex in chapter 3.**

**Please be gentle, this is my first fanfic in many years.**

* * *

Tifa got lost in Seventh Heaven's countertop. Sometimes she cleaned until she wore away the finish. As her hand's repetitive swirl continued unchecked she stared at the wall.

_I should take that picture down_, she thought.

A pressed-butterfly memory looked back at her. Barret's hand rested on Cloud's shoulder in the photograph, both men rendered indistinct by Gongaga's swampy fog. She'd taken it when they traveled the world after Meteorfall, when Cloud still attempted to force a smile on his face. Every time he'd slapped its bandage over his silence it looked more tattered and out of place.

His rare smile these days was a crack in a gradually clearing sky as Geostigma's shadow faded from the world. He wasn't around much. The return of his energy brought with it enthusiastic trips to help rebuild the world. All that effort he'd bound up in fighting and grief now exploded out of him in all directions as surely as his blond hair exploded off his head.

She wished she had a better picture to replace the one she frowned at now. Her own energy was still MIA and she despaired of ever having it again. Her feet felt stuck to the ground, her heart stuck in the days that blurred past as Denzel and Marlene grew up before her eyes.

An obstacle stopped her scrubbing, returning her to the present. She glanced down. A leather glove touched the area of the bar she was destroying with her erosion. She looked up into a pair of mirrors and saw herself smile in them.

"Hi," she said. "What can I get you?"

Rude smiled. "The pleasure of your company."

She laughed falsely and stifled a wince at her own sound.

"Do you have any plans tonight?" he said, flustering her further.

She frowned. "…No. Cloud's helping out Cid in Rocket Town, and Barret took Marlene and Denzel to the Gold Saucer for a week."

"I heard," he said.

She cocked her head at him. "Spying on me?" She was aware the Turk carried a torch for her. She found it cute and flattering, but didn't want to string him along while she felt this weight hanging in her chest every time she looked at Cloud.

Rude shrugged. "Close the bar early. Come out with me."

"…Out?"

"You look like you could use some fun."

"'Fun'?" she joked. "What's _that_?"

"It won't hurt. I promise…" He stopped and smiled. "I _promise_ you won't regret it."

"Hmm." She leaned back against the draft spouts, folding her arms, and regarded him. She wondered how long he'd been mustering the courage for this invitation. "You have someplace in mind?"

His grin broadened. She wondered what his eyes looked like behind those omnipresent sunglasses. Even when she'd fought him years ago they stayed on as if glued there.

She looked down at herself, mouth twisting up. Her dingy undershirt just needed to be thrown away. Her leather needed conditioning. She'd let a lot of things go lately. "I'll go change. Give me twenty minutes. Want a drink while you wait?"

He shook his head.

"On the house," she said.

"Brandy," he said instantly.

She gave him a generous pour. _What the hell am I doing?_ she wondered. She shoved the thought out of her head as she pressed the glass in his warm leather glove.

"Something you can dance in," he called after her as she ascended the stairs.

She paused, hand on the banister, even more surprised.

She'd had lessons, of course; it helped her fighting. She was fairly sure Reno had as well, from the way he pivoted when he kicked, but she wasn't sure about Rude. She smiled broader. Fighters with a good body sense tended to make phenomenal dancers, as she knew from when Zangan taught her.

Pawing through her closet, hangers scraping on wooden dowels, she found a dress she'd never worn. The one that had blared with promise from a shop window so long ago. She lifted it out: a blue velvet cheongsam slit high up the sides, with a scalloped panel missing across the chest that allowed her to expand her chest and actually inhale, unlike most dresses her size.

_Yes!_ she thought, before she lost her nerve. She stared defiantly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, slamming chopsticks in her upswept hair. Makeup veiled the dark circles under her eyes, coated her lashes to make her brown eyes pop, and darkened her mouth. Twenty minutes rejuvenated her look so much she felt shocked at the transformation.

Her spike-heeled ankle boots clattered down the stairs. He had only finished half his brandy. She strolled over, hips swaying. She took the glass from his unresisting hand. She knocked back the rest of his drink and felt burning warmth coat her throat. She hoped it could drown the last of her worry she was doing something stupid.

"Let's go," she said.

He offered his arm. She slid her hands through and felt his substantial bicep. Her body drank up the meager intimacy like a woman dying of thirst.

"Where's Reno?" she said as she locked up behind them. "It's nice to see you alone, I mean… I just wondered. He's like… your shadow."

"Northern Continent," he said, taking her arm again. "Coordinating WRO and Shinra drill teams. Many of them are largely deaf despite hearing protectors. I believe the president's exact words to Reno were, 'The situation calls for volume over delicacy.'"

She laughed. He waved down a cab and held the door for her. She felt flustered again, nervous as he slid in beside her and his thigh touched hers. She stared at his leg, unable to hear the address he gave the driver. In the darkness it was hard to see a shape beneath crisply ironed black cloth. Something girlish in her wanted to just touch him.

_Are we going out as friends? Or is this… more?_ she asked herself. Lacking an answer, she leaned back into the seat, watching mist curl off the streets and up from sewer grates. Aloud she said, "Where are we going?"

"The Promised Land," he said.

Her head whipped around. His impenetrable glasses aimed at her. She rolled her eyes.

"No, really," she said. "Where?"

His lips quirked but he didn't reply. When the cab stopped and he let her out, she saw why.

A small green neon sign greeted her with the words: 'THE PROMISED LAND.' A red velvet rope stretched across an open archway, two beefy men in fine suits flanking. She heard a faint dance beat, although in the fifth district of Edge this was not unusual at all. Clubs clustered thick on and under the ground here.

Rude produced a shiny gold card from his inner jacket pocket and the rope was unhitched. Tifa strolled into a deserted and oddly tranquil courtyard, lit by stained-glass lanterns. Though bass and drums pulsed louder here, she heard the trickling starburst-tiled fountain just across from the door. A pair of shadowed people murmured to each other on an overlooking second-story balcony.

Rude grasped Tifa's hand and tugged her toward a heavy wooden door on the right. Her shoes clacked on elaborate bright-colored patterns of tiny tile fragments. A sandwich board reside it read, in ostentatious curly lettering: 'TONIGHT! Desert Rose & Fage-Hage.'

As soon as the door opened she heard a deep, powerful singing voice like honeyed whiskey. Round tables filled the space before her. A flickering votive candle on each showed slivers of faces turned toward the stage.

The singer, in a red and black satin corset, perched on a wooden chair. Red satin flowered in curled rosettes at her hip and cleavage. Her white hair cascaded from under a black top hat with a gauzy veil, perched at such an extreme angle Tifa could only see red lips shaping breathy lyrics.

Beside her, a bald black man slowly pivoted with a pair of red-dyed chocobo feather fans flitting in his hands. Tifa gaped. He didn't seem to be wearing anything at all, and only judicious use of the feathers kept his genitals out of sight.

He still offered quite a buffet for the eyes. Skin stretched tight over every firm curve of muscle on his glorious body. He had not a strand of hair anywhere beyond his eyelashes and eyebrows. Dark skin shone alluringly in the light. Black abstract tattoo patterns swirled out of the cores of his biceps and up from his chiseled lower abdomen.

Tifa shut her mouth and swallowed hastily, almost whimpering. Rude tugged on her arm. She slid her eyes over the Turk's broad shoulders and torso.

_I wonder if, under that suit, he looks anything like that dancer…_ She suppressed a shudder.

He tugged again. Her thoughts awhirl, she followed in a daze. They re-emerged into the courtyard.

He dragged her to the opposite door under an orange sign that read 'PACKRATS.' He pushed through into a dim room of low-hanging green lamps, guitar ballads, green felt and bent-over men.

He guided her to a staircase in the far back corner of the pool hall. Her eyes lingered on denim stretched tight over the lean form of a young Wuteng man stretching across the table, one leg actually folded beneath him. Her breath caught, steps slowing. His focus, the cue thrust through his fingers, the way he twisted, all enthralled her.

Cue ball clacked, struck the bumper, only grazing its purple-banded target. She sighed and followed Rude up through the ceiling.

_…I really need to get laid_, she thought morosely, and eyed her companion again. Her stomach fluttered. _I'm not ready to decide. I need a drink…_

They ascended into a paradise of modern Wutain décor. A swirling green iridescent panel serpentined across the wooden floor like a river. People in elegant and casual dress lounged in chairs around low tables and drawled with relaxed ease at the curving bar.

Black-and-white luck cats waved from the shelves between liquor bottles. Flat plastic Leviathan swizzles sprouted from fruit-adorned drinks. Porcelain vases with blue-inked outlines of Da Chao held leaning branches of pink and white silk sakura flowers.

Glowing green letters spelled out 'Lifestream Lounge' on the mirror behind the bar, next to smaller signs for Raw Mako Beer and Icicle Inn Vodka. Even far away Tifa recognized bottle shapes, label colors, and approved of the liquor selection. She pondered what drink she should order.

Rude pulled on her arm again. She frowned up at him, now quite thirsty indeed, but at his enigmatic grin she just followed him.

As they neared the side door of the bar, the lounge's twangy tranquil Wutain music gave way to that hypnotic beat she'd heard in the courtyard. They stepped through.

A forest of tiny materia-colored bulbs embedded in the walls swirled, oscillated, changed color, reflected in clear icicle-like glass teardrops hanging from the ceiling. Mauve-colored leather couches and chairs draped with cuddling beautiful boys and girls in tight jeans, fishnet shirts, leather skirts, glittery tops, huge swirling metal earrings. Eyes and wet lipstick reflected the room's rainbow starlight.

It didn't take Tifa long to realize that the coruscating patterns of light matched the beat coming from beyond the clear glass wall and glass doors at the far side of the room. She could see a small balcony beyond, looking down on a cavernous room.

Red, green and blue laser sunbursts from a ring-shaped lighting rig suspended from the ceiling combed the catwalks and main dancefloor. As she neared the glass wall the music grew so near she could feel its pulse in her teeth and follicles. She saw the silhouettes of the twining mass of people against a floor lit up in colors wherever feet touched it. The dancers' moves created half the glittering light by which they danced.

She leaned against the glass. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen. A hand cradled her shoulder. She leaned into him for support.

"It's beautiful," she whispered inadequately.

His gloved fingers squeezed an affirmative.

_There aren't words_, she realized. Looking down on the floor she saw the twining lives of people who had thought more than once that their world would end. Most of them had probably had their worldview smeared by the ugly grease of grief. Instead of shriveling in hurt, they reveled loudly.

She reeled, both drawn and afraid. He guided her to the bar. She had to ignore the dancefloor for a moment, and focused instead on the friendly young waitstaff.

Willowy boys, mostly black-skinned, wore pristine white collars with black bowties and white cuffs with black cufflinks, but oddly no shirts across sallow torsos. Tifa realized with a shock the pale and dark girls in red halter minidresses, white petticoats and gloves, red pillbox hats and black fishnet tights were actually young men as well, busts fluffed out with falsies.

Sipping a purple liqueur Rude had ordered her while she boggled, she swiveled on her barstool and glanced around the room anew. Boys cuddled with boys. Girls cuddled with girls. The few girls cuddling with boys she saw turned out to be boys in drag.

She gasped.

Rude laughed.

She swiveled to him. A thousand colored lights reflected in his sunglasses like fabulous eternity.

"You're…?" she began.

"Bisexual," he said, sipping a rich brown liquid that almost matched his skin. "Most here are not."

_And not heterosexual, either_, she realized.

Light patterns flowed over her pale skin like water. She sipped, overwhelmed and bewildered. She didn't know whether to feel disappointed, confused, or just flabbergasted.

"It's kind of a haven," he added. "'Saucy Gold' membership also grants access to the fitness facilities under the building."

"The… what?" she said.

"Gym, dojo, and smoothie bar." He sipped his drink. "Self-conscious, the lot of us."

She nodded, ruminating. "I understand."

"Do you?"

She looked up into the infinite mirrors again and frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe not."

"Seems like you girls are always looking to be thinner. Guys… we always want more muscle, more tone. Nothing's ever enough, is it?"

She blinked, drank her drink.

"Membership here also pays for these." He pointed at a bowl on the bar she'd seen out of the corner of her eye and dismissed as candy. Really focusing on it showed her the bright-colored wrappers actually held condoms. "Free for everyone."

She reached for one and examined the bright red wrapper. Different fonts listed the separate areas of the club—Materia Dancefloor & Bar, Packrats Pool Hall, Desert Queen Theatre, Lifestream Lounge, Beautiful Bro Gym, Fancy Fruits Smoothie Bar.

"…And pays for the twenty-four-hour needle exchange out back," he added. "This place looks out for more than just its customers."

She put the condom back, exhaling, thinking of the every-man-for-himself feelings she used to get wandering through the slums of under-Plate Midgar. _Was there even a place like this then, before Meteorfall? Would I have known where to look? This place…_

Her eyes drifted to the spectacular lightshow on the dancefloor. She felt thrumming beats in her gut and in her sex, beckoning.

_No words_, she thought. _Some things can only be felt._

She finished her drink.

"Can we go in?" she asked him in a small voice, as if more than a simple glass door was stopping her.

He beamed, took her arm as she rose off the stool, and shepherded her into hedonistic delight.

No words. Down in the mass of ecstatic gratefully alive people, only movement, motion, and the moment existed.

* * *

"I LOVE your dress!"

"How do you get your hair to stay so silky? You must have, like, magic genes!"

"Look at these muscles! Have you seen her muscles, guys?"

"I _know_! This stone fox is pure fierceness!"

Pink and purple cocktails clustered on the bar in front of Tifa. Her head swam with effervescent praise gushing from a ring of spangly spandex-polyester-clad young men around her. She beamed at them, sipping through a straw, still flushed and sweaty from the transcendent dancefloor where she'd collected them all. Rude sat a little further down to give her admirers space.

She giggled and posed, showing off her bicep to appreciative sighs.

"You know," she said, "straight guys all run and hide when I bring out my ladyguns!"

The boys laughed.

She basked in attention without expectation of sex, sans that constant nagging pressure in eyes and gestures and 'oops-accidentally-brushed-your-boob' she got in straight bars and clubs. And, increasingly, everywhere—to the point where she hated going out at all.

"I love this place!" she said.

"This place loves _you_, honey!" purred a strawberry-blond thin boy at her elbow. He leaned in, grinning. "You've _got_ to come back next week, MCs KeepKalm and Makonoid are having a spin-off!"

"I don't even know what that is and I want to be here!" she said. She glanced over at Rude, who was smiling secretively at his glass.

A fresh beat thumped from the dancefloor and half her companions squealed.

"'Corellian Heatwave,' oh my god! I love this song!" said one, and they scrambled for the door as one seething mass of glittery excitement. "Tifa! Are you coming?"

"I need a break! Thirsty!" she laughed, indicating the field of drinks they'd all bought her. Her eyes met Rude's sunglasses as the group poured back out toward the dancefloor. He scooted over.

"Enjoying yourself?" he said as she downed a glass.

"Oh, my Holy, yes!" she said. "Thank you, Rude. I don't know when I've had so much fun. You know, I haven't even been to a club in four years!"

He lifted his eyebrows. "Really?"

She nodded, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I'm really glad I came out tonight."

He chuckled. She realized how she'd phrased it and laughed as well.

"Does Reno ever come here with you?" she said, booze emboldening her to nose at the relationship she'd always wondered at between the two Turks.

"Once. He didn't like it," he said.

"He _didn't_? This place is a constant party!"

"Exactly. Too many other pretty boys, too much shiny shit to look at that isn't him."

She stared at him, perplexed for half a second more as she digested his words. Then she burst out laughing, head in her hand, elbow on the bar. She shook her head. She gazed around herself anew at the hedonistic wonderland—a pleasure island in an urban sea.

Her eyes met Cloud's, staring in horror at her from the doorway.


	2. Stranger in a Strange Land

Seeing The Promised Land through Tifa's eyes thrilled Rude to no end. After months of waiting for the right moment, he'd finally gotten the chance to socially engineer a smile on that mopey face. The one he'd once wanted to take off his gloves and memorize with his fingertips.

He hadn't had any other particular agenda in mind—her joy was pleasure enough for him—right up until he saw her stiffen and swiveled to look at who had just arrived. Mako-blue eyes stared at them both, his already-pale face drained to white, mouth hanging open. As if someone had just told Cloud that Sephiroth would be dropping in later with his silver-haired boy-toy posse.

Seeing him without his composure, fine blond spikes glittering in the colored light, in the least likely of places, thumped through Rude even stronger than the bass. He lifted a hand to beckon Cloud over, since Tifa was clearly paralyzed with shock.

That Cloud obeyed made Rude even warmer under sweat-slick skin. He reached up, about to loosen his tie, thought better of it and straightened it instead.

"Cloud!" said Tifa. "What are you doing here?"

The poor man's eyes flicked from her to Rude as pink colored his face.

"Haven't seen you here before," the Turk offered more casually. "First time?"

Cloud nodded, remained standing in awkward silence. He watched with pinched brows as Tifa rapidly drained a glass and picked up another. Rude had enormous sympathy for both. Tifa's romantic designs on Cloud were a secret to no one. This club was as good as a big flashy 'GAY' sign pointing at most everyone who walked through the doors.

Tifa sighed and turned to Cloud, who now looked ready to flee.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said.

"You… are?" he said hesitantly.

She nodded, smiling. "I'm having the best night. You deserve some fun too." She swiveled to Rude with a squeak of the leather upholstery against sweaty velvet. "What do you say, Rude? Should we drag him to the dancefloor, maybe loosen him up?"

The bald man grinned, finished his drink and rose.

"…What?" said Cloud, too late. Tifa grabbed a fistful of his sweater vest and hauled the fashion-victim hero of the world after her. Rude, following into the press of the gathering crowd, leaned down to murmur huskily in the younger man's ear: "Relax."

This seemed to have the opposite effect. A wall of sound hit the three of them as they passed through glass doors onto the catwalk. Cloud's frown deepened as they neared the floor. Frantically oscillating dance beats meant that his characteristic silence wasn't out of place, but it seemed like every other scrap of him was.

With Tifa marching before him and Rude behind, he would have had to fight off both in order to leave. Tension even thicker than drums surrounded the swordfighter.

Tifa tugged insistently, slinking and swaying to the music. Cloud stiffened, the press of bodies having rammed him back against Rude. The latter laid a tender hand on Cloud's hip and gently insinuated a step to the side. Tifa, spotting this, collaborated to get this white boy moving.

He was just as clumsy and awkward as the paleness of his skin promised. Rude marveled that someone so graceful and agile with a sword the size and weight of a human could not find any semblance of rhythm.

_Ain't that how it goes?_ Rude grinned to himself.

His persistence and Tifa's wore Cloud down, and Cloud did not run. Like willowy moths to a golden flame boys melted out of the dancefloor and clustered around Cloud. All were lit from below by the shimmering lights in the floor panel and from above by lasers. With talk impossible, their bodies spoke for them, wide sparkling eyes on Cloud. He frowned at them, but didn't pull away.

Rude stepped back and watched. A boy reached up to delicately touch the spikes, hesitating, waiting for the blonde's refusal and getting none. Fingertips ruffled through hair. The teenager then smiled and leaned his own head forward. Cloud reached up, noticed his own glove.

Rude remained only barely aware of dancers jostling him from behind. Cloud took the leather off his hand and touched the boy's dark hair. Such a still, private moment in the chaos transfixed Rude. Another boy reached up, looking to Cloud's face for permission. Cloud nodded, still frowning, but less so.

In moments a cluster of boys were running their fingers through Cloud's spikes. He still had his hand on the first boy's head. Young virile male bodies pressed in toward him. Rude sucked in air over his teeth. Cloud's eyes slid shut, his head tipping back, pale throat stretching.

_God. Damn._ Rude thought. He stripped off his own glove, easily reaching over the heads of Cloud's admirers to add his bare dark fingers to the wriggling pile.

He'd expected stiffness and crunch but instead found feathery softness. Also acute desire to grip the young man's head, pull him through the press of admirers and kiss that soft-looking mouth. Rude pulled his hand back with a shaky sigh.

The boys around Cloud began to dance with him, timid touches sliding over his arms, shirt, body. Eyes still closed, he found the rhythm at last and got lost in it. A beautiful orphan in a sea of the beautiful dispossessed.

One of the dancers abruptly leaned in and kissed Cloud. Bright blue eyes flew open and caught the light, blonde eyebrows banging together in shock. Cloud shoved the young man off him, backing away. Rude moved toward the swordsman.

_He's done_, Rude thought, seeing his anxious expression. The Turk clasped Cloud's shoulder and pointed to the nearest exit, then waved Tifa over to follow before bulldozing a path through horny, antsy, twitchy dancers.

Rude felt relief he hadn't been the one to kiss Cloud and earn that fearful expression. An enemy he once worked so hard to defeat he now wanted to protect.

In the courtyard's quiet sanctuary Rude turned. Cloud met his eyes, glazed in sweat. His chin lifted.

"Tifa," said Rude, not looking away. "Mind opening the bar for us?" He saw her look from him to Cloud, who glanced back at her, wordless.

"Not at all," she said. "What are friends for?"

Cloud nodded.

Rude didn't trust her slow smile, the twinkle in her eye. Yet he badly wanted a simple de-sparkled place to sit and drink and see if Cloud would speak.

* * *

Teasing the knob of the radio in Seventh Heaven with little tweaks, Rude grinned as he unearthed soothing Coastan blues rhythms he'd been seeking. He remembered the taste of stolen beignets and sun-warmed orange soda, tingle on the tongue. He remembered salty tang of breezes through the open back door of a bar, jazz pouring back out like a tide, lounging with other lanky dark-skinned boys on empty crates stacked out back. Lazy afternoons, sugar-dusted shorts, salt-dusted sandals.

He joined Tifa and Cloud at one of the little round tables. Cloud finished his first helping of honey-brown liquid. Tifa poured another before the glass even touched the wood. Rude noted as he took the empty seat between them and lifted his glass that its fumes made his eyes water.

Rude found silence comfortable and potent. He had no problems sitting back behind his shades, unmoving, watching others squirm as the quiet filled up like a glass and finally spill over as the other person poured out nervous words. In this case, Cloud met and held his eyes and sipped. Holding it in like he could match Rude's reserve all day long.

"How did you find out about that place?" said Tifa, topping up the glasses of the two men. "I'd never even heard of it before."

Cloud shifted his gaze to her and shrugged. "A couple of people mentioned it to me in passing. Fliers, mostly."

"Did you know what it was?" she said.

He nodded.

Rude found the younger man's economy of movement and control enthralling. _What would it take to make him lose control?_ Rude's leash on his thoughts slipped ever-more as Tifa greased it with the never-ending glass in his hands. He held onto it tightly while his fingers dreamed of sliding bare along the curve of Cloud's bicep, locking around his wrist, pulling.

"What did you think?" said Tifa.

Cloud's eyebrows lifted. He took a long drink, throat bobbing in a way that made Rude shudder, and leveled his eyes at the Turk. "Loud."

A giggle burst out of Tifa as she poured her friend's glass full again. Rude couldn't help smiling, although it faded thoughtfully under that watchful gaze.

Rude admired that even with bare-naked eyes Cloud could hide his feelings. The sunglasses were a bit of a cheat Rude didn't mind using to psych out those around him. He knew that verbally he could probably out-silence Cloud, but those closed-yet-open eyes were an accomplishment. Everything that didn't leak out of his gaze remained stored in that deceptively small yet heavy pale body. Waiting for the world to fall into danger, and then all that hidden intensity could pour out sharp as a blade.

_What, if anything else, would unleash you?_ Rude wondered. _Is there anything I have that could open you to me? And what would you do then? Are you dominant? Submissive?_ He took another sip, letting the taste roll around in his mouth, considering both possibilities and finding each equally hot.

Cloud jolted and swiveled abruptly, breaking into Rude's elaborate daydream. The young man stared at the radio. A new song had just come on, a silky sweet woman's voice beckoning her lover home to her.

Cloud's mouth twitched. He laid a hand down on the table. From a man whose every move seemed deliberate, it told Rude that Cloud was feeling something overwhelming. A tiny crack.

Tifa saw it too. She moved to tip more booze into Cloud's glass, no longer subtle about what she was doing. Rude's hand shot out to clap over the rim. He leaned his head forward enough to give her a warning look over the top of his sunglasses. Startled, she pulled back.

"I was seventeen," Rude murmured. Cloud twisted back to look at him. Once the man was looking right at him, Rude reached up and with deliberate slowness removed his sunglasses, continuing: "Leon was thirty. Understood me in a way that women didn't. I thought it was because he was a man. Later I realized it was a part of Leon himself—regardless of gender, it's who the person is inside that counts."

Cloud's eyes widened. Rude lifted his chin, exposed without the shades on the table between them.

"Your first—" said Rude, and stopped. Booze was trying to push words out of him. It didn't seem such a good idea anymore. Cloud's brow had tightened, hands curling into fists, clearly about to snap. Rude tensed, wondering if he should even fight back. It didn't seem fair.

"You—" Rude began, trying to fumble a retraction.

Cloud flung the table aside, earning a yelp from Tifa. Rude reared back so hard he almost tipped his chair over. Before he could lift his hands Cloud had slammed into him, grabbed Rude's jaw in his hands and pushed his mouth roughly in place.

As the kiss really took off and Rude's brain spun, Cloud sank to a seated position straddling Rude's thighs. Rude reached up to clasp Cloud's hips, hesitant, wide eyes staring at Cloud's sweetly closed ones. Rude felt a tongue-tip prod at his teeth.

_Well, fuck, all right…_ Rude thought, closing his eyes and parting his lips. Ragged breath tickled his cheek. The chair creaked beneath Rude as Cloud leaned in harder. The man's hips ground into Rude's, stealing his breath, compressing two male bodies together.

Rude's ears rang from a combination of alcohol, breathlessness, and blood pooling in his lower reaches. The space between them suddenly got a lot tighter, and not just on Rude's side of it. Rude tore off his gloves, remembering his earlier tactile fantasy, and feasted on the feel of Cloud's skin over those arms. It wasn't enough. Rude peeled up the hem of Cloud's sweaty shirt and rammed his hands up inside.

Under his bare touch he felt Cloud shudder. Gloves pulled away from Rude's face. He felt so much from the stimulation of Cloud moving on him and that white-hot kiss he didn't dare open his eyes to check out what was happening. In a moment a bare hand was sliding over the top of Rude's bald head and he broke out in a sweat. Rude moaned.

_So… soft!_ His surprise at Cloud's uncalloused skin felt as profound as the discovery of downy-soft hair. Despite the hard, tight body and one-way gaze, Cloud had hidden delicacy Rude was eager to grab and bite and taste and feel.

He did so now, tearing his mouth from Cloud's and dipping to nibble at that pale throat. Cloud's head tipped back and a groan of "…hmm…" escaped him.

That did it. Rude wrapped his arms around Cloud's back and with a staggering push heaved up off the chair. Cloud tensed. Rude pulled back to look at Cloud's face.

No more restraint could be found there. Desperate, pleading gaze. Rude kissed him tenderly. Cloud uncoiled.

The sound of a door opening jolted both men. Cloud turned around, Rude looking over his head.

Grinning fit to break her face, Tifa stood at the end of the darkened hall. She held a door open to show a room, bright with moonlight, the end of a bed just visible. Rude met Cloud's eyes as they swung around again and nodded eagerly to him, breathing hard.

The corner of Cloud's mouth quirked. He grabbed Rude's tie just under the knot and dragged the taller, older man along the hall. Rude broke out in achy gooseflesh all over as they entered the bedroom.

Tifa shut the door, blotting out the jazz in the front room. All Rude could hear now was his and Cloud's gasping breath as their strong bodies and mouths slammed eagerly back together.

* * *

_**Author's note:**_ I will most likely make two versions of the next chapter, a non-explicit version for here and an explicit one to be posted at and eventually Archive of Our Own. Don't worry, Soak, you'll get your smut in all its naughty glory!


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